Lions dominate Lunenburg

Halifax County Middle School football celebrated another dominating performance Wednesday, defeating Lunenburg, 40-8, on the road.

The Lions ran 31 plays on offense, compared to 26 to Lunenburg. The Lions had 134 rushing yards and 75 passing. Lunenburg had 75 rushing and 20 passing yards.

Halifax capitalized early on a Lunenburg mistake.

The Lions forced a four and out for by Lunenburg. The long snap was mishandled and fumbled on the Lunenburg ten-yard line. James Smith scored on the next play and added the two-point conversion on a pass to Tylik Powell.

The defense again held a four-and-out and after a false start and an incomplete pass, Jamal Brandon scored from 34 yards out and Sammy Stevenson ran in the two-point conversion to lift the Lions to a 16-0 lead with 3:20 left in the first.

Lunenburg went on a nine-play drive before stalling out at midfield.

Smith hit Brandon on a 40-yard pass to put the Lions inside the 20. Smith hit Powell for a six-yard pass several plays later to put HCMS ahead 22-0.

HCHS limited Lunenburg to a six-play drive when Austin Carlson hit the QB from behind and created a fumble that was gathered up by Mykell Morris.

With under 50 seconds left, and 50 yards to go (with two timeouts) the Lions went to its no-huddle offense and pushed the ball deep into Lunenburg territory on a 24-yard run by Brandon and a key 12-yard pass play to Stevenson to a first down and out of bounds.

After a short pass for no gain, Halifax had spent its timeouts. The Lions rushed back to the line and spiked the ball with .6 sec left. Halifax scored on a quarterback draw by Smith. The two-point conversion failed, but the Lions led 28-0 at the half.

The second half the clock was run constantly. As a result, there were only 17 plays total in the second half.

Lunenburg ran only three plays on offense the entire half.

The Lions, using their second string, scored again on a six-yard pass from Jeffrey Cates to Troy Hubbard.

Lunenburg later got on the board with a 60-yard run and completed the two-point conversion to pull within 34-8.

Then the Lions went on a ten- play drive with the clock rolling to score again on a four-yard run and touchdown by Otis Slayton.

HCMS did not go for the two point conversion.

The HCMS defense was led by Ramon Coleman and Xavier Aguilar with five tackles each.